Messages - Carpe JDiem

Yep, agreed. You have to perform well, no doubt. I actually have decided to go to OSU since the time of that original post.

So to counter the negative tone in my original post, four positive points that have swayed me:

1) Close to family.

2) Save a bundle, they gave me a great scholarship.

3) I like that I'll have the option to pursue a public interest career, possibly politics, after graduation. OSU Law has great political connections in Ohio.

4) Buckeye JD said it best in the original post: "The professors are truly dedicated to teaching and are always there for students who need help academically or even personally. Additionally, we continue to hire one prestigious professor after another. The students are relatively nice for law students - not too hypercompetitive, and seem to really support each other."

I would end this with a "Go Bucks!" but I'm just not ready for that yet. I'll always be a Wildcat

I, too, am seriously considering DePaul. I live in New York now and I miss Chicago alot, especially on days like today when I have to write my rent check.

I think if you perfom at DePaul, the opportunities in Chicago will be there, and from Chicago you can transfer laterally or jump into a business pretty easily. I know that the law school is in a downtown "office building" and I just wanted to make sure that the law school is not a dark, emotionless place. I think your post has helped to put that fear to rest. I have already been corresponding with a professor and he seems great. Hopefully I'll see you in the fall, thanks again.

I have visited the law school and my impressions agreed with your description of the school. The administrators, the professors, the students, everyone seems to emit a very satisfied vibe. I think with the Moritz gift people are pretty excited about the school's direction, which is impressive considering the state budget cuts right now. There are many great things about the law school, and I met some students there that would hold their own at any T14.

And now for the flip side. The negatives of the school that are holding me back are as follows: 1) the place seemed like a high school both aesthetically and dynamically, right down to the room of lockers. By dynamically I mean the way that students interacted and the number of couples I saw together, both at the law school and when I went to a law school bar, it seemed like everyone was saying "I'm Tom, I'm a 2L, and this is my girlfriend, she's also a 2L." I don't know how I feel about this, but I think it speaks to the fact that the student body seems slightly immature to me, compared to Michigan, Northwestern, George Washington, etc.

2) Columbus seems overwhelmingly family-oriented and the students tend to drink and socialize at house parties or occasionally big, loud bars, but not laid-back lounges or clubs, which I prefer. Outside of a few places in the arena district, Columbus nightlife seemed to take place in moldy frat houses and stripmalls.

3) I may want to practice out of state and perhaps focus on international law. I think OSU has everything academically to prepare me for this, I was very impressed, but perhaps it lacks the name to get my foot in the door.

4) Limited Study Abroad options.

4) The town's obsession with the Buckeyes would get very annoying, real quick. Case in point, I saw a huge billboard supporting their athletic director. After all the scandals they've had that seemed odd to me that the university would publicly support him, and even stranger that they would rent out a billboard to make this point so brazenly, as if they needed to convince themselves and run a PR campaign on the whole town so that everyone's reality doesn't crumble.

OK, I'm reading too much into that, but the point is that I think the university is way too focused on athletics.

I realize this kind of defeats the purpose of these boards, but I'm favoring DePaul right now but haven't made a decision. Strangely enough, even though I lived in Chicagoland for 4 years I have never been to their law school downtown. Is it nice? Is the library nice? Decent student lounges? Can law students use the gyms on the Lincoln Park Campus?

Thanks for any info, hopefully I'll see you in the fall.

One more thing, do you know if that new University Center housing complex downtown is full for next fall? I think it is.

One thing about BU admissions: Apply early. BU's office of admissions is horribly unorganized. They lose stuff, they take forever to get back to you, and they hardly look at apps they receive after January 15th or so. I have a friend that applied in Feb with 166 and a 3.6 from a top undergrad and didn't get in, and another that is going there with a 164/3.6 (non-URM)from a SEC school, applied in November. Weird stuff.

Oh, and their website is crappy and they are unhelpful over the phone.

I got in and decided against it. I figured that if the admissions office was representative of the schools administration, it was going to be terrible.

Wealthy attorney buys Montauk homes, gives to firefighters to torch in drills so he can rebuild, have view

May 16, 2005

What does a wealthy homeowner do when he can afford a perfect hilltop property but it comes with an unimpressive house?

For W. Christopher White, a Manhattan real estate attorney, the answer was to burn it down to make room for a larger, more luxurious house.

And what does he do when a neighbor's roof is the only flaw in an otherwise unobstructed 180-degree water view? He buys that house for $2 million and burns it down, too.

White, a senior partner in the Wall Street law firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, donated both houses to the Montauk Fire Department for training purposes.

Yesterday, firefighters torched the second of his acquisitions on the ridge above East Lake Drive. The 2,500-square-foot, two-story Tudor had a turret, stained-glass and mullion windows, a two-car garage, and a swimming pool. It was built just five years ago.

"It's mind-boggling to me that people have so much money that they can afford to burn down a perfectly good house," said Montauk Fire Chief Charlie Grimes. "But it's a good thing for us that they can."

James Kim, a partner in Men at Work, the Wainscott-based firm building White's home, stopped by to watch the blaze, but declined to be interviewed. White could not be reached for comment.

Neighbors said he recently won a bidding war on the Tudor house that was burned down yesterday. The first house was burned down two years ago.

In exchange for donating a house, an owner is eligible for a tax write-off equivalent to a portion of the house's market value - and a clean slate to build a new, usually larger house. White's latest write-off will be about $1 million, but he plans to plant only grass and shrubs there for now, Grimes said.

For the past month, Montauk volunteers have had the home at 26 Talkhouse Lane to re-enact emergency situations with a smoke machine. Yesterday, members of four neighboring departments joined them for drills involving real smoke and flames.

In room after room, they set fire to wooden pallets stuffed with hay, then practiced finding and rescuing "victims," dousing the flames and escaping from rooms filled with smoke.

Just after noon, they set the final blaze, watching as flames crackled across the roof, melting glass hung from the windows like tattered cloth and dense black smoke funneled upward.

Volunteers from South Fork fire departments often train together at a Yaphank facility that has only a concrete building. They also solicit donated houses so they can hone their skills in real-life situations. They find one every year or so, but unlike White's, those are usually uninhabitable or of little value.

"This is some country we live in; so many people can't afford to buy a house and we're burning down a perfectly nice one," said Dorothy Peel, an emergency medical technician in her 20th year as a volunteer. "Still, it's best if we can practice on something real."

As a pair of firefighters in a cherry-picker doused the nearby hillside to avoid setting fire to the bushes, a neighbor, Neil Kennedy, calmly pulled weeds from his gravel driveway.

"It's a shame because that was the nicest house on the hill," Kennedy said. "It's a free country, I guess, but he sure is dumping a lot of money into it."

I ultimately decided OSU. The scholarship $$ they offered is great, I do not think I am going to take out a single loan for law school, and I just like the feeling of knowing I'll have all options coming out.

100k is alot, but I think that if you see yourself in a California firm for the long term, I think Hastings is your best bet. I personally am into money management and investing as a hobby, so avoiding debt for me was a big factor.

Hastings definitely has positives to go along with the debt. Beautiful surroundings (the Bay Area, not necessarily the Tenderloin), a good rep, good faculty, and a mature (albeit very competitive) student body.

I would look at some of the Cal firms and see if they have any OSU grads, I don't think you'll find too many. That doesn't mean that you can't get a Cal job, especially if you do well, I know OSU grads who have gone to Seattle and LA, but there alot of Hastings grads in Cal firms and doing well there will be a good position to be in while looking for firm jobs and will probably be able to choose among jobs.